From The Culturally Savvy Christian by Dick Staub
(speaking about the 60's) The locus of spiritual dialogue was migrating out of the church and into popular culture. The convergence of these contemporary forces would crack the foundations of organized religion, erode its authority and confidence, and, in many ways, displace it as the center of spiritual influence. In a lightning-rod moment, John Lennon quipped that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. In a subsequent press conference, Lennon explained that he was actually deploring the rising influence of everything popular and the diminishment of religion: "I could have said TV or cinema or anything else that's popular. Or motorcars are bigger than Jesus... I'm not knocking Christianity or saying it's bad, I'm just saying it seems to be shrinking and losing contact... We [the Beatles] all deplored the fact that it is, you know. And nothing better seems to be replacing it."
But something was replacing it. Media consultant Michael Wolfe said recently in The New Yorker, "I really believe entertainment in a lot of ways has become a way for people to come together. It has, in fact, become - I'm convinced of this, it's become a replacement for religion; in the same way people used to quote scripture, they're now quoting Seinfeld."
What do you think? Has popular culture become the main "locus theologicus," as Staub would say, that is, the main place that people encounter God in our culture?
1 comment:
Before the Segway was revealed to the public, Bill Gates said something to the effect that it would change the way cities were structured. Despite the Segway being a huge failure, the statement really wasn't as dumb as it sounds in hindsight. Had the Segway taken off like some expected it would, we'd all have an easy way to do much of our traveling with very little energy used (both our own and our natural resources). Imagining a city where people traveled by Segways as much as they now travel by cars is to imagine a city that, as Gates said, has a completely different structure. To travel effectively in such a city, you would have to have familiarity with both the technology and structure. If you didn't, you would still be able to get around, but you would not be using your time efficiently.
In the same way, I think the modern world tends to revolve around pop culture. I meet a wide variety of people at work, but I can find one common ground with each and every one of them: television and movies. In fact, I could strategically pick 10 TV shows and movies and probably maintain a conversation of reasonable length with every donor that is willing to talk. Depending on how you look at it, that's either discouraging because of how limited the human experience is becoming, or it is encouraging to be able to find some common conversational ground with just about everyone.
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